The Top 6 Most Haunting Songs in Hip-Hop
A good evening to you all. In place of your beloved Rap Critic, I will be stepping in this October to guide you through the darker recesses of Hiphop, the blood-stained corners and crevices that turn the most sane individual to madness. I go by many names, striking fear in the hearts of men and excitement in the hearts of women, but the one I've taken the most liking to is Black Thunder, the ghost of Isaac Hayes, and this month, we will dwell amongst the most haunting lyrics in Hiphop, the sounds that send chills into the souls of men, and rattles their very faith in humanity. Starting things off right, I will begin with the Top 6 Most Haunting songs in Hip hop. Why top six? *chuckles* I think you figure it out. These are tunes of terror, songs that not only jump-scare you like so many cheap horror flicks, no, I mean songs that carve their dark thoughts into your psyche, making you just that much more reluctant to turn off the lights on pitch black evenings. These are songs you put on when you not only want to spook your guests, these are songs you put on when you want them to gaze at you in wise eyed, slack jawed shock of your twisted choice in music. I'm actually serious, the songs I'm about to show you will not be the Rap version of the Monster Mash, we're about to get into some serious shit, my friends. We will be covering some demented material, so I'll actually have to deliver a trigger warning for this episode and some of these songs. I mean it, if you have weak constitutions for violent or sexual themes, you may want to stop watching right now. So, having been fairly warned, let's get started Top 6 Most horrifying rap songs: 6 2 Pac "Hail Mary" Now, the creepiest thing about the song, isn't necessarily the lyrics themselves, it's about the beat, the delivery of the rhymes, and the context within which this song was released Come with me Hail Mary nigga, run quick see What do we have here now Do you wanna ride or die You see, all his career, he had been obsessed about his own death and what would happen to him if he was murdered, and then, once he actually was killed, a couple of months later, the music video for this song came out, complete with Bells resembling tolls of death, cryptic lyrics coupled with whispering and screaming, and a video about Makaveli, his new rap name, calling back to Machiavelli, rising from the grave and enacting revenge on his enemies Bow down, pray to God, hoping that he's listening Seeing niggas coming for me, through my diamonds, when they glistening Now pay attention: bless me please Father, I'm a ghost In these killing fields, Hail Mary, catch me if I go Let's go deep inside the solitary mind of a madman Screams, in the dark, evil lurks, enemies, see me flee This whole package was just too real to not be playing into a bigger conspiracy about 2Pac's possible return or revenge upon his enemies However, as creepy and unsettling as 2Pac's presence is on this song, there's a couple of things that keep it from being higher on this list. Those things would be the guest verses They got a APB out on my thug family Outlawz run these streets like these scandalous freaks Yeah, whereas Pac weaves a pensive, enigmatic, nightmarish picture with his rhymes and delivery, and giving off a fearful vibe that's works in the sense of a slowly boiling psychotic episode, the other guys, just rap with the typical thug bravado Peep the whole scene and whatever's going on around me They just don't seem to be treating it like the brooding, gloomy track that it is. I mean, sure, they're both just spitting gangsta raps about death and murder, but they do it with no sense of subtlety or nuance We've been traveling on this weary road Sometimes life can take a heavy load Oh yeah, and then this guy shows up… We won't worry, everything well curry Yes we free like the bird in the tree We running from the penitentiary I don't know who this guy is, or why the felt they needed to put him on the song, but it's not as threatening as they think it is… also, this was oddly enough the second song with a music video where 2Pac threatens someone else while his friends spit subpar rhymes while a Jamaican guys meanders around vocally on the outro *show "Hit Em Up" I don't know why that was such a specific thing… 5 Geto Boyz "Mind plain tricks" I sit alone in my four-cornered room staring at candles Now this is one of the quintessential Hip Hop tracks of the 90's, and a very interesting one at that, as it was a subdued depiction of mental health issues in the ghetto At night I can't sleep, I toss and turn Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned Four walls just staring at a nigga I'm paranoid, sleeping with my finger on the trigger Now, I don't think that was what they were actively trying to show us, like it wasn't supposed to be an after school special type rap lesson about how mental health issues affects people, but by them just writing a song about paranoia and delusional hallucinations, it comes across that way He owns a black hat like I own A black suit and a cane like my own And this line in particular is pretty jarring, because his verse is about being watched by someone, but by him describing someone who dresses just like him, I'm forced to assume he's ultimately saying he's afraid of himself, which can be seen as a physical manifestation of being afraid of what his own mind is doing to him. Now, I always found it interesting that Scarface had two verses. It's like he was so haunted by his troubles that he just wasn't done by the the end of the first verse, switching from a verse about paranoia to a verse about depression Day by day it's more impossible to cope I feel like I'm the one that's doing dope I often drift while I drive Having fatal thoughts of suicide Bang and get it over with And then I'm worry-free, but that's bullshit But while Scarface's verse deals more with being afraid of yourself and being unwell, Willie D's verse deals more directly with being afraid of others taking revenge on him, that what 's done could come back to haunt him Is it that fool that I ran off the block Or is it that nigga last week that I shot Or is it the one I beat for five thousand dollars Thought he had caine but it was Gold Medal flour He then tells us of a specific event where he got paranoid: But late at night something ain't right I feel I'm being tailed by the same sucker's headlights But then, of course, his fear is quelled by what's really happening Here they come just like I figured I got my hand on the motherfucking trigger What I saw'll make your ass start giggling Three blind, crippled and crazy senior citizens Wait, they were all blind? How the hell were they driving? But anyways, my favorite verse is probably Bushwick Bill's This year Halloween fell on a weekend Me and Geto Boys are trick-or-treating Robbing little kids for bags Till a law man got behind our ass So we speeded up the pace Took a look back and he was right before our face Because whereas the other two talk about a threat that's far away and too hazy to make out, Bushwick tells us about a seemingly real event that involved someone actively getting up close and personal. And with the others, you say to yourself, "well, they're obviously just paranoid, nothing is actually attacking them", with his verse, shit is going down He'd be in for a squabble no doubt So I swung and hit the nigga in his mouth But then, it turns out, even though Bushwick details the most real danger that any of them were talking about, apparently, none of it actually happened The more I swung, the more blood flew Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared too Then I felt just like a fiend It wasn't even close to Halloween My hands were all bloody, from punching on the concrete Now, where you could say that this verse was just showing us a stereotypical "crazy" person, having a hallucination, I think that in the environment the geto boys were from, this verse might have been delving more into the idea of hallucinogenic drugs playing a role in exacerbating their paranoia (I mean, he literally says, "I felt just like a fiend"), which sounds about right since according to Scarface, who originally wrote this verse for himself, he has brought up before that he had been experimenting with drugs since he was a child If I were to be nit-picky, though, I would have to say that a major place where the songs fails to be truly scary is the beat itself. It's kinda… not doing a good job of helping portray this schizophrenic, paranoid atmosphere. It's a little too upbeat and funky to work on it's own, but in this case, the lyrics more than make up for that 4 Now, this next one is a newer song one from Tyler, the Creator *play "Yonkers"* Now, at first, you might think I'd b=put Yonkers or something like that on this list, but, honestly, that song was more random and scattershot than it was actually scary.. "I'm a fucking walking paradox, NO I'M NOT" I mean, that's not as scary as much as it is just comically contradictory No, to me, the song the inflicts the most troubling vibes is this one: Tyler The Creator - She New girl moved on the block She been plottin' on my brown cock Okay, maybe that line is more awkward than creepy, but I'm talking about the entire premise of the song. See, the first verse is rapped by Frank Ocean, detailing him meeting a new girl in the neighborhood, and while he, being the smooth player he is, has sex with her basically that same day, there's another guy that wants her, too, and he doesn't have a problem making that fact known During sex, I overheard A sword sliced the air, I pulled out the na-na Rolled off the bed, then shot back, pow-pow Looked out the glass, seen him sprintin' on the grass A real ninja with the blade and the mask We are then introduced to this madman in ninja gear, as played by Tyler, the Creator, the weirdo obsessed with the girl in question The blinds wide open so he can See you in the dark when you're sleepin' Naked body, fresh out the shower You touch yourself after hours Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom You're sleeping alone in bed But check your window, he's at your window *shivers* Now, when Tyler finally does start rapping, his style is very calm, yet with small interjections of frustrated screams, as if his rage over this girl is barely being held back like so much bile in a sewer about to overflow and spill into the streets, as he raps about desperately wanting this girl for himself Night light hits off, turnin' kisses to bites I'mma down to Earth nigga, with intentions, that's right You'll be down in Earth quicker if you diss me tonight But I'll be the happiest if you decide to kick it tonight It's a frightening peek into the psyche of a mentally unstable person when they fall in love with someone, because once he's attracted to her, she has no choice other than either to be with him, or be murdered One, two, you're the girl that I want Three, four, five, six, seven, shit Eight is the bullets if you say no after all this And I just couldn't take it, you're so motherfuckin' gorgeous This is it's own particular brand of creepy, because with a lot of horror, the idea is that someone did something in their past that they're paying for, but here, the girl in question hasn't done anything wrong deserving of the pursuit of this maniac short of having the misfortune of being seen as attractive to a psychopath. The scariest thing about this song though, is that plenty of people, in their youth, have been to this place in some form or fashion. To be young and not understand your feelings, and to get so angry that you can't have someone that you begin to resent them, someone that you, at one point, believed you were in love with We can chill and I can act like I don't wanna fuck You can tell me all your problems like I really give one Or, someone that you honestly just want to have sex with, because you're only physically attracted to them, which is probably more likely… But the true horror comes from not how different this character is from us as what we would consider being normal, but how similar he is to us, how his wants resemble ours: the longing to be loved, the sting of being rejected and the way you wish you could make them feel your pain to satisfy a misplaced sense of wanting to get back at them for rejecting you. This song is that irrational feeling taken to it's illogical extreme Baby you're gorgeous I just wanna drag your lifeless body to the forest And fornicate with it but that's because I'm in love with you To it's… VERY illogical extreme… To make things even more uncomfortable, that's actually his ex-girlfriend in the video… *shivers* 3 gravediggaz "Diary of a Mad Man" Okay, now some would say that Geto boyz invented the genre of horror core. Well, if they invented it, then the Gravediggaz perfected it with their song "Diary of a Mad Man" Bear witness as I exercise my exorcism The evil that lurks within the sin, the terrorism Now, when making this list, I wanted to stray away from songs that were too typical as horror core: hack and slash rap songs that just talked about randomly running around chopping up bodies and shooting people in the face like a serial killer with no motive, basically, I wanted to review songs that were a little more than: "Murder murder murder, and KILL KILL KILL!* However, if there's one song I can make an exception for, it's this one I saw the torture brutal murder of my father So my brain became stained with the horror I'm having reoccurring nightmares Of being soaking wet, strapped down to the electric chair The imagery they use here goes beyond hacking and slashing, it's just outright clinically insane. Some of this stuff is straight out of a Stephen King novel On your right side there’s fire, your left, deep waters Watch your step, it's steep quarters What's that coming through the floor? It's a claw *pssh* took his fucking ass to the fucking core (ahhh!!) And I of course, have to give my favorite verse to the Rza, who delivers the most intricately horrifying verse of them all: I got tackled with handcuffs and shackled in restraint At the bottom of a holy tabernacle And sewed my eye lids open so I couldn't sleep About to die from thirst, that's when the minister Quenched my jaws with a cold glass of vinegar Upon my wounds they seasoned me with salt And nailed my hands feet to the form of a cross Ahh!! I cry As the blood drips inside of my eye refusing to die ….Jesus… Not much can be said about this one, other than the fact that the rhymes and beats connect perfectly to make the ideal horror song you could play to scare the crap out of people based purely on their horrific imagery 2 "The Tunnel" Jakki the Motamouth Well, what better way to celebrate a time of evil and death than by going straight to hell? Y'all might not know about this guy, but he had a pretty slept on album back in '05 called God vs. Satan, in which Jakki the Motamouth must go through 6 different scenarios to prove whether or not he will either fight on God's side or join Satan's army. It's a dark ,twisted yet creative album that I suggest you all give a listen to some time, but at the crux of it is a song called the tunnel, about Jakki getting in a car crash and descending to the depths below "I've heard of this light before, some stated that it was amazin' So tell me why I'm afraid and this light looks more like a blazin' fire This is Hell, I just entered the gates First emotion I experienced was anger and hate Blaspheming God for sending me to such a dangerous place Now I'm here and there's torture as far as the eye can see I can not believe I was deceived And, along with a sad, plodding gloomy beat, filled with appropriately hellish sound effects, the man goes into such intricate detail, it's breathtaking I'm here for a lifetime, and that's what saddens me More than the fire that's burning my kneecaps Or the demons that randomly beat cats But never can you sleep, bugs will forever eat at your tissue With you left with meat hanging from chest to cheeks I'm seein' creatures from movie flicks, they really do exist In demon form, it truly is the spookiest And to top it all off, near the ends, he meets someone he was probably not expecting to see… I see a man with what appears to be a bible Dressed like a deacon, and he's preachin' and seems to be teachin' a group "Why did you leave me, man?" I said to this cat Like I'm mad, cause the fact is, this cat is my dad He explained to me how he used to steal from the church Slept around with quiet women, had a strong crack addiction It ultimately comes together to make a dense, mind-rattling experience, and for the full impact, I suggest listening to the whole album, but by itself it's still one eerie track 1 Dance with the Devil" Immortal Technique Remember when I said we're about to get into some serious shit? Yeah, this is exactly what I meant by some serious shit Dance forever with the devil on a cold cell block But that's what happens when you rape, murder and sell rock Devils used to be God's angels that fell from the top There's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot This is quite possibly the best story telling rap song I've ever heard while also being the creepiest, spine-chilling story I've ever heard over a beat. It starts off simple enough, about a kid in the ghetto wanting to be a badass: I once knew a nigga whose real name was William His primary concern, was making a million Being the illest hustler, that the world ever seen He used to fuck moviestars and sniff coke in his dreams So he wanted to do something that would prove to them that he was a real man, that he could be a cold hearted thug like the rest of them. Stepping to some of the biggest gangs in his town, he told them he wanted to be jumped into the crew, and would do anything to prove that he could be as hard as them. And so, they gave him an ultimatum: But only a real thug can stab someone 'til they die Standing in front of them, staring straight into their eyes Billy realized that these men were well guarded And they wanted to test him, before business started And then… They saw a woman on the street walking alone Three in the morning, coming back from work, on her way home And it only gets darker from there… And so they quietly got out the car and followed her Walking through the projects, the darkness swallowed her And what happens in the next verse will… well, it's hard to say, and I don't want to spoil just how dark this story gets, but he DOES say this: They say death takes you to a better place, but I doubt it Cause he was lonely and scared But only the devil responded, cause God wasn't there And that's all I really want to say, because if you haven't heard this song, you need to experience it firsthand for yourself This is quite possibly one of the darkest morality tales you will ever see this side of a Twilight Zone episode. Well, that's my list. And some of you may be asking, "Hey Black Thunder, the ghost of Isaac Hayes, where's Eminem in all of this? Oh, don't worry… *laughs* Category:Content Category:Guides